UNC class project takes look at homosexuality

The fact that I am a lesbian is not the all-encompassing factor of what makes me, me. I am a sister, a friend, an employee, a student, a thinker, a writer and a dreamer. I like to laugh and read and ride my motorcycle. I have a Bohemian heart that pines for the open road and the mystery of meeting new people. I bleed. I feel. I don’t want to be judged.

– Victoria Matthews

When a peer suggested homosexuality as a topic for a college class project in the spring, Victoria Matthews was surprised. It took a married woman in class to suggest it, and it beat out budget cuts for the project.

She thought about homosexuality as a topic but didn’t want to bring it up, said Matthews, a 30-year-old who graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in May with a journalism degree. “The majority

of the class knew I was a lesbian, and I didn’t want to seem like a champion of causes.”

Matthews has lived in Greeley formore than five years, ever since she moved here with her ex-girlfriend in January 1998. She’s had people walk up and give her religious pamphlets, trying to save her soul. She usually takes them and says thanks. An argument is useless, she said, because she wouldn’t change anyone’s mind in five minutes.

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Instead, she chooses to live as openly and as honestly as possible to educate people in her own way.

“If they don’t like me because they make a superficial judgment about me, or if they can’t get over their insecurities or bigotry, it’s their loss,” said Matthews, who sports short hair and has tattoos on her shoulders. “It’s like judging people because of the color of their skin.”

A typical stereotype is that homosexuals are trying to convert straight people, she said, so she picks her battles. And when the battles wear her out, she and her friends find comic relief in the joke about there being a handbook for lesbians and gays. “If I recruit one more, I get a toaster oven” is one of the gags.

There is no handbook.

Matthews chose to be a student, not an advocate of gay rights in class that day discussing topics for the project. Every student had responsibilities on the project of either writing, editing, photography or layout. Classmates said there was only one student who might have had objections to the topic on moral grounds. At the end of the project, students had sharpened more than their journalistic skills.

“A couple of students went in with some knowledge about homosexuality because they had a friend, a family member or an acquaintance they knew was gay,” she said. “After the project, most of them understood the challenges better. They definitely experienced personal growth.”

For her part in the project, Matthews wrote a first-person account of coming out at the age of 21 and what it’s been like for her. Her mother and sister are supportive, but she’s had friends who lost their families when they came out. She writes about how frustrating it is to not be able to kiss a girlfriend or hold her hand in public, about how she’s endured snide comments from strangers.

She writes about the insult of the Colorado state legislature rejecting a bill to allow same-sex unions while considering a law that would have raised the status of a domestic pet from animal to companion. Feeling discriminated against could have made her bitter.

Instead, Matthews approaches life open to people and open to questions. She grew up in Clovis, N.M., which she describes as a small religious town. To be gay is to not be normal but to be something disgusting, she said.

So she played it straight.

“I tried to play on those stereotypes of being straight. I had a Chippendales calendar in my locker in seventh grade.”

She wonders aloud whether she would have come out if her father, a military man, hadn’t died of liver failure. Matthews was 19 at the time and blames youthful pride on not telling him she loved him before he died.

She learned a valuable life lesson that she said she uses every day: show kindness and love.

Matthews said she doesn’t even smush spiders and walks around ants on the sidewalk. So she was concerned she might not like what she found when she embarked on her Greyhound bus tour of America this summer. After 15,000 miles in three weeks, she was surprised at what she learned. Matthews stayed the optimistic person she was at the beginning of her trip. She was reassured to find that people are the same all over, if people open up and talk.

Matthews wants to write a book about her experiences.

Although she had a buddy traveling with her for three weeks, she went solo later in the trip.

She plans to move to Portland with some friends, where she hopes to get a job writing.

Some people drove her up a wall in Greeley, but Matthews said when she leaves in December, she’ll leave as a confident woman who’s sure she can make it in the world.

“Greeley became the place I stopped running and freed up who I am. Greeley will always hold a special place in my heart.”

During the spring semester of 2003, students in the advanced news and feature writing class at the University of Northern Colorado took an in-depth look at Greeley’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. In consultation with their professor, Lynn Klyde-Silverstein, the students initiated story ideas, researched the issues, wrote and edited the stories, took photographs and created informational graphics.

“I’m a lesbian and I like to do all the things that non-gay people do,” Greeley resident Sandy Hoffman said. “But when I’m on a date I can’t kiss my girlfriend in public. I have been out with friends at restaurants and heard snide comments like, `What are they doing here?’ “

– From an article by Becky Linenberger

For students questioning their sexuality, one of the many overlooked resources that the University of Northern Colorado offers is found in the course catalog.

A quick search reveals that the anthropology, sociology and women’s studies departments all offer courses that discuss sexuality and gender. “Class discussions get issues out in a nonjudgmental context and keeps it from becoming personal,” philosophy and women’s studies lecturer Lisa King said. “I have seen some people’s ideas change over the course of a semester about homosexuality, even though it is rare.”

– From an article by Victoria Matthews

In the ’90s, colleges and universities began to include bisexuals in the gay and lesbian campus organizations. At UNC, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center includes bisexuals in its title. Yet some still question whether bisexuals are just “straddling the fence” or looking to experiment.

– From an article by Courtney James

Terri Sparks of Loveland is a 41-year-old civil rights activist. She said Amendment 2 encouraged activism in Colorado.

“The amendment was outrageous and it brought rights activists together,” Sparks said. “Groups got organized and even those activists who are not gay supported the right to petition the government. It only made the gay rights organizations stronger.”

– From an article by Beth Alles

Doctors may assume patients are heterosexual and not discuss certain issues or risk factors.

“They always ask how many partners you’ve had. They never ask who or what. Doctors need to know because it’s part of your sexual history so they can advise you on what you can do to be safer, so they can give condoms and dental dams,” said Becky George of Denver.

– From an article by Elizabeth Bright and Lani Weaver

At the University of Northern Colorado, the football team consists of about 100 athletes. If statistics are true, one if not more of the players is homosexual. As a stereotypically “macho” sport, one would think that this would worry many of the players, but cornerback Mark Teerlinck doesn’t see it that way.

“Who cares? I’m sure somebody on the team is probably gay. We’re worried about winning games, not about stuff like that,” Teerlinck said.